Saturday, April 4, 2015

Slanted - Forever (2015) - a brief overview.

As long as there are purveyors of lo-fi, pastiche ridden indie rock like Nashville's Slanted, you can bet I'll be willing to lend an ear (maybe even two). Their debut, Forever is a gauzy mesh of Polvo guitar tunings, half-smothered vox (courtesy of ex-Diarrhea Planet's Casey Weissbuch) and a grab bag of enchanting foibles and techniques, batting many an eyelash to the "masters": Guided by Voices, Pavement, early Dino J, etc. The highlight here, "Little Pocket/Bread House Bonanza," attaches scuzzy guitars to a skewed pop context, not unlike another one of my faves I've presented to you before, further. Elsewhere, the hooks are tucked inside tunes with a subtler bent - "Sign," "Disc," while the going gets considerably more noisome on "Dog" and "Chris Takes." I wish I had a more eloquent way of conveying that Forever is a promising debut, but I suppose I'll leave it at that. Go get it from a price of your own choosing on Bandcamp.